Week Six Vogler Annotation...

10.14.08

Zoah Alvarado

Vogler Annotation

Vogler, Christopher. "Book Two: Stages of the Journey". Stage Five: Crossing the First Threshold, and Stage Six: Tests, Allies, Enemies.

Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2007. 127-141.

Summary.

  Right after accepting the call to adventure comes yet more trials and tribulations for the hero to overcome. The hero does not truly step outside the Ordinary World and enter the Special World until (s)he performs an action which provides the transition. This action is called the Crossing of the  First Threshold.  The Refusal of the Call and the Crossing of the First Threshold hold common ground in that both may at some point involve tragedy. Vogler describes the Crossing of the First Threshold as "plot point" and "turning point" (128). Here is where all the training, tools, and advice acquired from Meeting with the Mentor is first utilized. Threshold Guardians, mentioned in "Book One: Mapping the Journey", are encountered in this stage in order to add the element of a threshold/hurdle to the story. He takes for example two characters from Greek mythology: Cerberus, the three headed canine monster who "guards the entrance of the underworld"( 129), and Charon the ferrymen "who guides souls across the River Styx...who must be appeased with a gift of a penny"(129).

Enter Stage Six: Tests, Allies, Enemies. Once the hero has fully crossed over from the Ordinary World into the Special World more trials are met. These, however, are new, never before  encountered tests from which the hero progressively learns. Allies previously  unrecruited are now gained but not without the manifestation of Enemies as well.

Reaction.

Stages Five and Six had the same tone as One and Two in that all were lacking in thought provocation. The sections fail to provide new creative thoughts, but instead simply stated the obvious with little from which to diverge or branch off. Vogler recollects the Ally, Enemy, Threshold Gaurdian, and to a certain degree, the Mentor, and Trickster archtypes, but does little to recount them in new forms.

Questions.

1. Is it possibe to have a story in which the stages are reversed: The Crossing of the Threshold before the Refusal of the Call?

Words.

Shanghaied (128): to drug or otherwise render insensible, and ship on board a vessel wanting hands; to transfer focibly or abduct; to ctontrain or compel.

Sentence: Charlie Chaplin came out in the 1915 comedy movie called Shanghaied.